Singer Lily Allen went viral last week, but for a terrible reason: She adopted a puppy named Mary, but then returned it after it ate all of her family’s passports. This resulted in massive backlash everywhere online – Escalating to the point of death threats.
Allen admitted this on an episode of her Miss Me? podcast, but there were plenty more details to her story than the headlines and snippets being shared that she simply gave up her new rescue pup due to her eating her family’s passports. Allen explained in her podcast what happened back in 2021, “She ate all three of our passports, and they had our visas in. I cannot tell you how much money it cost me to get everything replaced because it was in COVID, and so it was just an absolute logistical nightmare. Because the father of my children lives in England, I couldn’t get them back to see their dad for like four months, five months, because this [expletive] dog had eaten the passports. She added, “I was like, ‘You’ve ruined my life.'”
So yeah… That sounds pretty terrible. Many people on Twitter and Instagram pointed out it wasn’t the puppy’s fault – It was clearly the human’s who left their passports accessible to the young pup. When this writer got a new puppy, you wouldn’t find a sock below knee level in his home, let alone something as important as a passport. And Peta of course jumped into the fray, will Lily Allen responding.
People laugh when they talk about painful things all the time, it’s quite normal. I’ve clarified that we didn’t abandon her and that she was rehomed with people we knew almost immediately. Why are you perpetuating lies ? What kind of animal welfare charity tries to shame someone… https://t.co/SLORFjFauN
— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) August 26, 2024
Allen followed up with a lengthy explanation of the situation, starting with how most articles didn’t quote the part where she said the passports were “the straw that broke the camels back.” She goes into her history of adopting and caring for dogs since she was a child. And the huge effort she put into trying to help the puppy adjust to living with her family. But after exhausting her options, she found the pup a new family with people she knew personally.
"We tried very hard and for a very long time but the passports were the straw that broke the camels back"
— Lily Allen (@lilyallen) August 25, 2024
This is the part of the podcast that the tabloids decided not to quote in their articles about me "dumping my puppy"
People have been furiously reacting to a deliberately…
This response wasn’t enough for many members of the online mob, who still accused her behavior as entitled. Allen also mentioned in her podcast that she was considering adopting again, so we’ll have to wait and see if she does and if she risks making that information public.
Lily Allen is married to Stranger Things actor David Harbour, who appeared on their pup Mary’s Instagram a couple of times. While Mary has been happily living with a new family since 2021, she hasn’t posted since. But with her newfound celebrity status, maybe she will take a shot at becoming a pet influencer…